Catholic media may be remedy for challenges ahead

Matthew Gambino|
Catholic News Service

2/06/17

WYNNEWOOD, Pa. — Catholic news media might be the remedy for
three of the greatest challenges facing the church in the United States today,
according to a leading Catholic journalist who spoke recently at St. Charles
Borromeo Seminary in suburban Philadelphia.

CNS was founded by the U.S. bishops in 1920. The international
news service is based in Washington, with offices at the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops' headquarters.

In his talk, Erlandson recalled the words of Cardinal Foley that
could be considered the mission statement of Catholic communicators. Media
professionals, the cardinal said only weeks before his death in 2011, have a
"sacred bond" with media consumers.

"They look to you for information, for formation, for
inspiration," the cardinal said at the time, repeating a theme he had
offered Catholic journalists many times in his long ministry in the church and
in the Catholic press.

The cardinal was editor of The Catholic
Standardand Times newspaper in Philadelphia from 1970 to 1984 when he
was named to lead what was then the Pontifical Council for Social
Communications at the Vatican.

Cardinal Foley supported and encouraged generations of Catholic
journalists, and his words still apply to the issues facing Catholics and
journalists today, Erlandson suggested.

He offered context to his talk titled "The Power of the
Word: Catholic News Media and Spiritual Formation" by describing three
crises in the church today.

"My conversations with Catholics around the country suggest
that they are unaware ... of the challenges we face now and will face 'in
extremis' in the near future," Erlandson said.

First, an aging priesthood faces a "demographic cliff"
that in coming years will not have enough active priests to sustain parish life
in the United States as it is structured today.

"Each year an average of about 400 new priests are ordained
nationwide, while an average of 1,500 retire or die," Erlandson said.

He also cited the decline in sacramental marriage as well as
baptism and the reception of other sacraments, driven largely by divorce and
remarriage outside the church.

Lastly, Erlandson described the dearth of Catholic faith
formation for children and especially of adults. Citing a statistic that only
15 percent of Catholic school-age children attend a Catholic school and despite
valiant efforts of volunteer religious educators in parish programs,
"nearly everyone agrees that many Catholic parents are too distracted,
undereducated in the faith or broken to assume their role as 'primary
educators' of their children," he said.

Putting it bluntly, Erlandson said two generations of parents
"have been educated primarily in, at best, 40-minute class sessions 20 or
so weeks a year from first through eighth grades or until confirmation,
whichever comes first. Too many of them are, in terms of their religious IQ,
children inhabiting adult bodies."

It has been said that Catholics today are the best educated in
the history of the church, but "in this country, this applies to their MDs
and their MBAs, not to their religious education," Erlandson said.

If Catholic families are the building blocks of parishes that are
stressed by a gap in clergy resources, then a "parish- and family-centered
religious education system" is sorely needed, he said. "At this point
the greatest strategic need facing the church may be in the area of adult faith
formation and education."

Erlandson suggested Catholic media including television, radio,
digital and print publications may best address the need to form lay Catholics
to accept the leadership roles they will increasingly need to take in the
church.

Catholic news and commentary can inform Catholics on the issues
of the day by "helping them to see reality through Catholic eyes,"
Erlandson said, adding the church "needs a voice to tell the stories that
are not being told, or not being told well, and it needs a voice to mobilize Catholics."

Secular media might not present issues such as the Health and
Human Services contraceptive mandate, health care reform, immigration reform or
the Christian diaspora in the Middle East with the Catholic perspective that
offers not propaganda but the truth of the Gospel.

"The regular appearance of a Catholic publication with news,
analysis, columns and features in a virtual or actual mailbox does more to help
form more adult Catholics than any other method or tool," Erlandson said.

Catholic news media's stories of ordinary people striving in
extraordinary ways for holiness have an undeniable power "to show that
what God asks of us, what the church teaches, can be lived out in the real
world," he said. "It is being done. And the lesson is that we can do
it too."

Just as secular media are experiencing seismic changes in their
business model and even in their quality, the Catholic press is also under
great stress "but it remains a vital and valuable tool in service to the
church," Erlandson said.

"It needs the resources to flourish and to fulfill its role
to inform, to form and to inspire, particularly at this time when other
institutions of the church, especially the parish, are facing equally daunting
challenges and are in need of a well-formed laity."

And while he pointed out "print is not dead" and
delivering a publication into homes remains "the ultimate push
technology," he also acknowledged social media, video, print and digital
all are tools the church can use to preach the Gospel "and to reach modern
men and women effectively."

Gambino is director and general manager of
CatholicPhilly.com, the news website of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.